


The caged bird has broken out.

by Anonymous



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/M, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Persona 5: The Royal, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27450532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: On a boring Sunday evening, Takamaki Ann knocks at Akechi Goro's door. Shenanigans and tentative friendships ensue.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Sakamoto Ryuji/Takamaki Ann
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	The caged bird has broken out.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something very quick and without any pretenses, written simply because I like the idea of Goro being friends with Ann and Futaba post-Royal.

_ "Kagome, Kagome, when, oh when will the caged bird go out?"  _

The nursery rhyme escapes the speakers of his PC together with fragmented memories. An angry child befitting the role of the oni surrounded by the cruelly innocent voices of his peers. 

_ "Who's the one behind you?" _

Uneasiness filled their eyes as he guessed his victim without fail. 

"Oi. What are you spacing out for?" Sakura Futaba glares at him from a small window on the screen of his computer. "Weren't you the one lamenting that this Visual Novel is too lighthearted compared to the other titles of the Scientific Adventures universe?" 

The lonely bird has escaped its cage long before. 

"Hmm. It's interesting how they used the urban legends rotating around a children's game to pull off such a scene. Though I wonder if, realistically speaking, it would be possible to use determinate frequencies to control machines and humans alike."

Futaba's purple eyes widen but her gaze turns sharp. "Well, it's not my field of studies, but the human brain works through electrical impulses. So if you mess with those signals you can also mess with what people hear and see, which would consequently affect their behavior." 

Cognitive psience has far too many dangerous implications to be studied out in the open – which is why the Kirijō Group keeps its tab on everything even remotely close to it – but a better understanding of it would certainly prove beneficial. "So, even if only theoretically, it could also hold an influence on one's cognition of–" 

The doorbell rings and tears a jolt out of him. Few are the people aware that "Akechi Goro" is the one who's actually living in that inconspicuous two-rooms apartment in Shinjuku and even less are the ones who might have some business with him in general on a late autumn Sunday. 

"I have a hunch of who it might be" he says with annoyance dripping from his voice. 

Futaba huffs out a laugh. "Never heard of a secret agent in a good relationship with their neighbor. Can't you just pretend no one's home?" 

"It would raise much more suspicion if said neighbor spread rumors about a young man in his twenties who lives alone and acts all secretive." He props the PC on the table, its screen facing away from the door. "I'm just 'Miyamura Keiichi', a college student striving to gain his independence, after all." 

The slight creaking of the tatami under his socks swallows whatever witty remark Futaba throws at him. How she and Ren aren't blood related is still a mystery.

"I'm terribly sorry, Matsumoto-san" he says with wistfulness in his voice and the hint of a frown between his eyebrows. "I have a very important paper that is due tomorrow so I really can't look after ChouChou, today." 

Baby blue eyes framed by golden locks offer him a dumbfounded look. "... ChouChou? What's that?" 

"It's my neighbor's poodle dog, but that's not the point." He waves the topic away with a swat of his hand. "Takamaki, what are you doing here?" 

Takamaki purses her lips. "To put it in the blunt way you'd say it… I'm here to discuss how Sakamoto Ryuji is an idiot." 

He crosses his arms and vague amusement lazily stirs up in his chest. "There's nothing to discuss if your statement is comparable to an axiom."

"An a-what?" Her hair sways with the shaking of her head. "Nevermind. Look, I know it's kinda the most obvious thing in the world, but I really need to get this off my chest." 

"Then I think Ren is the one you're looking for." He's a secret agent, not a goddamn therapist. The profession doesn't hold even the slightest hint of appeal to him after what he went through thanks to the whole Maruki ordeal. 

"Oh, but it's you I'm looking for." A red-painted nail pokes at his chest. "Ren would be great at consoling me and that chocolate cheesecake he perfected is a very good reason to ask him for help, but it's your brutal honesty that I need here."

People are hypocrites in a sort of amusing way. They come asking for an unfiltered opinion and, at the same time, don't hesitate to define his lack of sugarcoating as "brutal". Is he some kind of dramatic evil overlord in Takamaki's eyes? 

He shifts away from the door. Some problems won't be solved unless he tackles them without stalling. "... Come in. Futaba should still be online." 

Takamaki beams as if he's just proposed to pay for a dinner at Wilton's Buffet and trots into the small antechamber. 

He plops unceremoniously on one of the cushions on the tatami and redirects the PC's screen towards him. "Takamaki is here."

Futaba blinks a couple of times and adjusts her headphones as if she isn't too sure about what she heard. Understandable, he would have been the same. "Ann? What is she doing there?" 

"Ask her directly."

As if on cue, Takamaki crawls from the seat to his right to wave at the camera. "Hi Futaba! I wanted to discuss with Goro how Ryuji is an idiot." 

"Huh? We all know that Ryuji's hopeless, duh." 

At least someone else gets it. He sighs. "I suppose that if Takamaki thinks that it's something worth being discussed Sakamoto must have surpassed himself in terms of stupidity yet again."

"Oh, no." Futaba adjusts her glasses in a way that painfully reminds him of some anime character. "Spill the beans, I'm listening." 

Takamaki lets herself fall in a sitting position next to him and focuses her gaze on the low wooden table with a light frown. Such a pensive look is a rare sight on someone with a stubborn and happy-go-lucky attitude as her, so much that it rouses in him the suspicion that she's concerned about something legitimate that is not pertaining to her soaring career as a model and actress. 

"Well, today we had lunch at the usual place in Ogikubo and Ryuji told me some things that are worrying him lately." White teeth lightly bite bare lips. "And it made me happy that he relied on me to vent. But then he said 'Ya know, Ann, I'm glad you're here. You're like a bro I can always talk to in front of a good bowl of ramen." 

On the other side of the screen, Futaba slams her hands on the desk. "Oh my God, he Ren-zoned you." 

He blinks at the several implications of the exchange but Takamaki doesn't give him the opportunity to process it by letting out a sound in the middle between a frustrated growl and a desperate lament. 

"Yes, that's it. He doesn't even see me as a girl anymore and… and… I

I don't know. To be honest, I am at a loss when I think about it." 

Well, it's hard not to be when Sakamoto might have reached idiocy levels worthy of a Guinness World Record. 

"Okay guys, I'll log off here. I need to test something." 

His eyebrow cocks up. "Test something?" 

"Yup. I'll send Ryuji a few pictures of my favorite BL doujins and ask him 'do you think bros do these things?' to see how he reacts." 

An encomiable example of scientific method that will probably go to waste, given the test subject, but interesting enough to prove how Einstein was right about human stupidity. And he didn't even have to cope with a sudden unfamiliar situation. 

"Well then, I'll leave Ann in your capable hands, young Padawan. See ya!" 

With a notification sound Futaba's orange mane disappears from the screen to leave it on the Visual Novel he was reading. Takamaki stares at him in silence but her eyes betray the kind of expectation his neighbor's poodle has on its face when waiting for a treat. He pinches the bridge of his nose. 

"I already know I'm going to regret asking this but. Do you have…  _ feelings _ , for Sakamoto?" 

Takamaki blinks and the ghost of a smile arches a corner of her lips. Blaming her for being amused by his awkwardness would be hypocritical. "I… do. Though I realized it only recently."

"I can't say I approve of your choice, but I suppose you do fit each other rather well."

"Hmm. Ren often says that me and Ryuji share a brain cell." A small laugh escapes her lips just to turn into a wistful sound. "But that probably doesn't mean anything. I think that Ryuji's type might just be cute and timid girls, the kind you want to protect." 

If Sakamoto truly has such shōjo manga-type of fantasies he's in serious need of a reality check. Preferably in the most shell-shocking way. "I've been wondering something from the beginning, Takamaki." 

"'Ann'" she pouts. "You've known me for as long as Futaba. We're friends." 

Human learning is based on mirror neurons' action and for that very reason people tend to absorb like a blank slate the talking habits and little tics of those who surround them. The bunch of the former Phantom Thieves are the most blatant example to him, as they all share – despite their striking differences in character – the habit of talking like the protagonists of some old 90s shōnen manga in which friendship wins against all evils. 

"Alright,  _ Ann _ ." He grits his teeth and exhales. He's not cut for this kind of discourse. "Are you truly this upset because you want Sakamoto to see you as a girl?" 

Ann cocks her head to the side. "Huh? What do you mean?" 

"To be frank, if that were to happen you wouldn't be different from any other girl to Sakamoto, so it's a rather fickle reason to be upset. Though this doesn't erase the fact that his choice of words was as idiotic as him." 

"I… don't want to be just a 'bro'." She hugs her knees. "I mean, I'm happy that he feels comfortable enough to talk about everything with me. But I don't want him to value only those parts of me that remind him of one of his friends." 

"Nobody can truly like every part of a person. There will always be sides of you that, despite not being 'wrong' per se, won't appeal to Sakamoto." After all, people are generally unstable and self-absorbed to the point of being interested in nothing but the surface of others. "But if your wish is for him to see you as a meek and fragile girl he can use to boost his ego, then I think you should give up. It would be an offense to you and to Suzui, who looks up to you more than anyone else."

Ann looks down and her fingers grip the edges of her hoodie's sleeves like they're the only thing that's preventing her from crying. "I don't want to be reduced to someone I am not." Her voice is weak but possesses that steely edge he had a brief glimpse of during his collaboration with the Phantom Thieves years before. "I want him to acknowledge every part of me, even those he doesn't like. Because that means that if he'll end up liking me, he'll do that even after being confronted with everything I am." 

And it's another of those cheesy one liners Ren and his friends used to sprout but that determination to be truly  _ seen _ is an echo of who he was as well. A traitorous smirk stirs on his lips. "Good."

Ann stares at him with the sketch of a smile. "Thanks for listening to me, Goro." A lock of fair hair is twirled around her finger. "You know, I'd like to hug you now, but I'll respect your personal space and limit myself to offer you something to eat. No sweets, I promise." 

Ann truly is an exemplar confirmation of how Ren's friends are a bunch of people as weird as him in the way she speaks her mind freely, not bothered by anything. It's the same freedom of heart he used to envy in the past and that he has been able to gain only by breaking out of the cage he trapped himself into. 

And maybe what made him cave in to Ren's sentimental stubbornness is exactly what Ann is seeking. 

"We have a deal, then." 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The Visual Novel Goro is playing is "Robotics;Notes" and the children's game mentioned is called "Kagome Kagome" ("Circle you circle you").  
> Despite being something very liked by children, the game itself is rather creepy: one child is chosen for the role of the "oni" and wears a blindfold while sitting in a circle made by the other children. The circle spins around the oni while singing the nursery rhyme and at the end of it, who's in the center has to try and guess who in the circle is behind them. If their guessing is correct, the recognized child "does", if not, it's the oni who dies by being "killed" by the other children.


End file.
